Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Beware William Tell's Second Arrow

That was indeed a man: William Tell, seen here immortalized in bronze next to a likeness of his son, is a hero not just to Swiss patriots, but to all those in whom the desire for freedom is irrepressible.

"You Swiss are so proud of your 500,000-man citizen militia.... But what will you do if a 1,000,000-man German Army comes marching across your border?"

"That's easy. Each of us will shoot twice, and go home." --

A reported conversation between a German and a Swiss diplomat, circa 1939.

Seven hundred years ago, when Switzerland was under the domination of the Hapsburgs, a dissolute colonial overlord named Hermann Gessler sought to humiliate the residents of Altdorf, the capital of the central Swiss canton of Uri.

Gessler instructed his minions to erect a tall pole in the town square, at the top of which would be displayed his cap. Every Swiss man who entered the square would be required to pay fealty to Gessler, and the foreign imperial power he represented, by bowing before his cap.

One local resident was a man who distinguished himself by both his virtuosity with a crossbow and his contemptuous hostility toward bullies. Trying to force him to genuflect before another man, let alone his empty cap, would be a bit like trying to relocate the Matterhorn one shovel-full at a time. So while others prostrated themselves before Gessler'sheadwear, William Tell stood erect, burly arms folded across his broad chest, slowly shaking his head as his derisive laughter echoed through the town square.

Tell's defiance became known to Gessler, as did his reputation as a marksman. The Hapsburg stooge was worried about the possibility of Tell's rebellion becoming contagious. Endowed with the vicious creativity that so often replaces character in creatures of his kind, Gessler abducted Tell's young son, forcing William to leave his mountain home and stand before him.

Gessler told Tell that his son would be placed in the town square with an apple atop his head. Tell was placed at a considerable distance from his son and told that he was to shoot the apple from his child's head; failure to do so on his first shot would bring about the death of his son at the hands of Gessler's soldiers.

According to the legend, Tell hesitated not at all in fitting an arrow to his crossbow and letting fly, cleaving the apple without harming his child.

Tell's feat, and the composure with which he carried it off, were sufficient to impress even the porcine, self-enraptured Gessler.

As Tell collected his son and turned to leave, a second arrow fell from his coat. Noticing this, a puzzled Gessler asked Tell why he'd bothered to grab a second arrow, since the first shot would either have succeeded or brought about the death of his son.

Fixing the despot with an unflinching stare, Tell replied: "That second arrow was for you, if the first had wounded my boy."

Not long afterward, Tell's second arrow found its intended destination as Tell and his countrymen rose up against the foreign occupation, leading to the eventual creation of the Swiss Confederacy in the late 13th Century.

A true citizens' militia and its leader: Henri Guisan, appointed commander-in-chief of the Swiss militia during WWII, inspects the troops. Thanks to Guisan's leadership and strategic vision, Switzerland deterred a planned Axis invasion and was able to remain independent during the European bloodletting.

Owing to its tradition of resolute individualism, the unexcelledmarksmanship of its citizen militia, and its decentralized political system, the Swiss have managed to avoid entanglement in the affairs of other nations and preserve their independence from foreign domination.

Efforts have been made to break Switzerland to the saddle of "internationalism": In 1798, the French revolutionary army invaded and occupied Switzerland, inflicting on it a centralized "Helvetic Republic" that lasted five years.

Under the leadership of Colonel Henri Guisan (at the time, it was the tradition that no officer would be appointed "general" unless the country actually went to war), the militia prepared a strategy called the "national redoubt": In the event of a German invasion, the militia would retreat into a series of fortified installations in the Alps and wage unremitting guerrilla war for as long as it took to drive the invaders from their land.

Confronting the prospect of fighting an entire country under arms, and horrified by the price that would be paid to pry the Swiss militia from its Alpine redoubts, the German High Command decided to leave Switzerland alone. What this means, of course, is that Switzerland actually won its war without suffering the hideous losses inflicted on any of the combatant nations.

A decade ago, another campaign -- this one more subtle than threats of military occupation -- was mounted to destroy Swiss independence. Beginning in 1997, Switzerland, which rescued tens of thousands of Jews from the Holocaust, was besieged by spurious claims that its renowned banking system was hoarding gold stolen from victims of the Nazis.

Stories were put into circulation describing the cynical heartlessness of banking officials in turning away aging survivors of Nazi cruelty; those stories invariably proved to be as substantial as cotton candy and as reliable as Jim Cramer's investment advice.

Nonetheless, a global campaign of defamation and invective, spearheaded by the coprogenetic Edgar Bronfman Sr. and eagerly abetted by the Clinton administration, indelibly branded the Swiss as Holocaust profiteers, thereby setting the stage for a shake-down that continues to this day.

No matter that on three prior occasions -- in 1946, as a result of the post-WWII Washington Accord; in the mid-1950s; and in 1962 -- the Swiss banking industry had conducted comprehensive, diligent, and transparent investigations regarding its wartime gold holdings.

Nor did it matter that the Clinton administration's inquiry actually exonerated the Swiss of claims that they had hoarded "victim gold" stolen from Jews who suffered and perished at the hands of the Nazis. The defamation campaign succeeded in prying some $14 billion worth of gold from the Swiss treasury and -- more importantly -- inducing the Swiss electorate to enact a new constitution that (among other dreadful features) repudiated the link between the Swiss franc and gold.

The Imperial Regime in Washington apparently believes it has reduced the heroic Swiss to a state of subservience, because its most recent demands savor of the same arrogant, unwarranted self-assurance that led Herr Gessler to place his hat atop the pole in Altdorf's town square.

This is the ugliest spot in Switzerland. I'm kidding, sort of.

Last year, Washington tried to impose a $780 million fine on the Swiss for their refusal to enforce U.S. tax laws within their own country.

Next week, the Regime intends to press its claims in court -- that is, in its own courts -- in the hope of forcing the Swiss to turn over confidential information on some 52,000 Americans who have private accounts protected by Swiss law.

To their eternal credit, and the benefit of those who cherish freedom everywhere, the Swiss are responding to Washington's imperial bullying with the equivalent of William Tell's laughter, augmented by an upraised middle digit.

Earlier this year, the Swiss People's Party (SVP) began a campaign urging their fellow citizens and elected leaders to resist Washington's imperial blackmail. After the Swiss government capitulated in late February to Washington's demand to pay a $780 million fine and disgorge the names of Americans who had opened private banking accounts, the SVP -- the nation's largest political party, which combines tradtionalist populism with enticing hints of libertarianism -- angrily demanded the repatriation of Swiss gold stored in the Swiss National Bank in the U.S.

The party also demanded a ban on the sale of U.S. commercial and government bonds in Switzerland (a sound proposal, if only because the sale of fraudulent financial instruments is a crime), an end to the Swiss government's role as a diplomatic intermediary between Washington and various national governments disinclined to act as U.S. colonies, and a refusal by Geneva to help Washington free itself from the tarbaby it created at Gitmo by taking in detainees freed from the detention facility.

Not everything about the SVP is entirely commendable, but in mounting this pressure campaign it was acting squarely in the noble tradition of William Tell and Henri Guisan. And the party's efforts may have helped the Swiss political class regain its backbone and virility: The Swiss government has announced that it will forbid UBS AG to comply with any order from the US central government requiring it to surrender confidential banking information -- and that Swiss authorities would seize that information, if necessary.

Already, major Swiss banks have announced that, of necessity, they will no longer accept American clients because of disclosure and paperwork requirements being pressed on them by Washington's commissars for international wealth extraction.

These extraordinary measures, notes Bill Bonner, are being undertaken by Swiss officials in order to preserve their country's traditional role "as a protector of foreigners' money." To that end, as well as the protection of its own citizenry and their economic interests, the Swiss are "sharpening their knives and tightening their borders," Bonner writes. That is to say, they seem to be recovering a hint of the intransigent patriotism that led them to evict the Hapsburgs, throw off Bonaparte's yoke, and stare down the Wehrmacht.

Washington, the focus of evil in the modern world, is displaying the behavior we would expect terminally corrupt collectivist kleptocracy: It needs revenue to satisfy its retinue of parasitic constituencies, has the power to seize it in defiance of the law, and believes that all people everywhere should genuflect before its demands. It is behaving pretty much the way Gessler did before he was brought down by Tell's second arrow.

Wouldn't it be delicious if Switzerland's resistance proved to be the precipitating event that brought down Washington's wretched empire of debt and deceit?

Video Extra:

From about twenty years ago, a Canadian comedy troupe anticipates the anti-Swiss defamation campaign:

39 comments:

When I lived in Japan I knew a Swiss-Italian couple and the husband told me that the mountains are catacombed with bunkers and depots. He said that if someone where to try and move through the passes with any armor they'd simply blow the mountain up and bring it down on their heads! Likewise he intimated that they had air defense capabilities but wouldn't go further into detail.

Consider that the US Feds will pursue ex-citizens who give up their citizenship under the notion that somebody who does it must be a tax-avoider. In their eyes its all about the money. I understand that they will hound you for no less than ten years. There truly is no shame with the bunch in DC.

Although they've done some things in the recent past (such as severing the ties between the Swiss Franc and gold) that haven't been all that admirable, I cannot help but cheer on their behalf for giving Washington the finger.

I hope they continue to stand their ground - the Swiss are to be commended for actually having the backbone to stand up to the empire known as the United States.

The United State is so evil, and so out of control I'm just grateful we still have as much freedom as we have. The 4th, 5th, 9th, and 10th amendments have been voided. We have most of the 1st (not that many care to listen) and most states have a little of the 2nd left. Interestingly, there are bills in Congress that will totally get rid of the first and second amendments. The Megan Myer CyberBullying Act of 2009 will, if passed, eventually lead to about as much freedom of speech as Pol Pot allowed.

It was my pleasure to spend some time in one of those legendary Swiss mountain bunkers. They are as secure as any such thing can be and still be used. While necessarily tight quarters if filled to capacity, they are very well designed and built, and can be quite comfortable. We also saw a couple of teenagers (boy and girl) riding bikes to the nearest gun range, fine assault weapons strapped to the bikes. They proceeded to shred their targets nicely. I could live in a place like that.

A remarkable country. When I was there, my Swiss host showed me his assault rifle in his bedroom closet. Imagine - a million assault rifles in public hands, (allowing full mobilization within twelve hours,) and it is one of the most law-abiding and peaceful countries in the world. The crime rate is almost nonexistent.

My Swiss host also explained that his 2 clips of ammunition were sealed, and had to be inspected each year when he went for his 2 weeks of reserve camp. If a seal was broken, he would be in big, big trouble, and have to explain how that happened.

A friend left his brand new camera on a park bench in Zurich, and went to file a police report so he could claim the insurance when he returned to the States. The police gave him back his camera - someone had handed it in.

You never see a cop in Switzerland, but they are everywhere. They walk around in pairs, in business suits, (yes, they ARE armed, but you would not guess it,) and they mostly leave the public alone, unless there is a real crime being committed. Then they show up literally within seconds. And the SWAT teams that protect the banks are heavily armed, with machine guns with 50-round magazines, and extremely efficient - I watched them do a practice drill. Thirty seconds for 12 of them to arrive from the other end of the Bahnhofstrasse in their van, exit, completely surround the bank, and seal all the streets around. But even if a robber got away, he would never make it out of the country.

Ah, yes, Christmas Eve in the Bahnhofstrasse - the banks take in so much cash the tellers have no room in their tills - there are foot-high stacks of 1,000-Franc notes all over the counters. And nobody shows up with his assualt rifle to try to steal it.

The Swiss and the Austrians never ask you anything about your financial business. Such inquisitiveness horrifies them, and makes them very uncomfortable. One's money is very private, and that privacy is sacred.

If the government passes any law and you don't like it, you have a certain time (I think a year) to collect 50,000 protest signatures, then the law goes to a referendum and every citizen gets to vote on it. Now THAT is democracy. It keeps the government from even TRYING to pass any oppressive laws.

It is also worth noting that in WWII, Roosevelt's Treasury seized the bank accounts of all German nationals in the United States, to the tune of $229 million, an enormous sum at that time. (The entire US Federal Budget in 1940 was only $6.5 billion.) Almost ALL of that money belonged to German Jews who had transferred it here for safety. Not one brass penny of the $229 million was ever returned to its rightful owners, but the Jews of the world have NEVER breathed one word of complaint about it. Now ain't that a mystery? Howls and whines and snivelling about everyone else and their alleged ripoffs, but not a whisper about Roosevelt.

Moreover, a year or two ago, an employee of a bank in Liechtenstein stole the names of all the depositors, then sold the names of the German depositors to the German Government, of the British depositors to the British Government, and of the American depositors to the American government. The ex-employee made out quite handsomely from the various deals. Prince Alois of Liechtenstein complained bitterly that these governments were trafficking in stolen property, but of course his complaints fell on deaf ears.

Like the Afghanis, the Swiss are not to be trifled with. In the 1470s Charles the Bold (hah!) decide to go snatch some Swiss real estate to cover his debts. The Swiss, at the time armed with pikes and crossbows, defeated Charles' army on three separate occasions, the last one resulting in Charles' death.

It's been thirty-one years since my last visit to Switzerland, but even then it had the look and air of prosperity that should have been the envy of the world. I sincerely hope that the Swiss have better sense than to capitulate to the demands of the Amerikan-EU monster that seeks to destroy everything admirable and good about their nation. Their latest salvo of defiance is a very good start. And yes, indeed, it would be a wonderful thing if Switzerland's defiance sparked the ultimate downfall of Rome-on-the-Potomac as an empire.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN1833850820090618"The euro jumped against the Swiss franc on Thursday amid speculation the Bank for International Settlements was acting on behalf of the Swiss National Bank to defend the 1.50 level."

--To their eternal credit, and the benefit of those who cherish freedom everywhere, the Swiss are responding to Washington's imperial bullying with the equivalent of William Tell's laughter, augmented by an upraised middle digit--.

The middle digit routine is backed by the BIS as friend of the Swiss National Banking system. Good try, though, I believe the story of the brave, the underdog, the Swiss is a myth-tainted fairytale. Bankers as bankers are soulless folk intent on profit.

"Washington, the focus of evil in the modern world..."

Washington only stands in proxy for the locus of control of evil which operates through the UN/IMF and the BIS. What sovereign decisions has Obama made lately on the US behalf?

I had to read this a couple of times; I’ve never heard this before about the US and Switzerland. I couldn’t believe it. It’s sickening.

I don’t understand how it is even possible for the US to fine another country or to take another country to court. What’s the “or-else” if a country doesn’t go along? I wonder why other countries don’t band together and impose sanctions on the US or do any of the other myriad things to us that we have done to them.

FrancessnootHow does focusing on creating/sustaining a profit constitute a soulless act?I run a business of my own and I have found over the years that a bleeding heart of benevolence hardly pays the bills.

Very good essay as always. I just finished reading "Liberty in Eclipse" and it was very good as well. I was wondering though if your radio program was archived anywhere, and if so, where I could get it. If it is not archived, then I will be the first to make the request. I have alot of free time in which I would like to listen, but unfortunately it is usually not at 6 oclock. Thank you for all that you do.

I second that request for access to .mp3 archives of your radio show! (like Lew Rockwell does :-) ...Bonus would be if I could get the "Liberty Minute" collection as well! Keep speaking and writing the truth Mr. Grigg!

"My Swiss host also explained that his 2 clips of ammunition were sealed, and had to be inspected each year when he went for his 2 weeks of reserve camp. If a seal was broken, he would be in big, big trouble, and have to explain how that happened."

What you didn't apparently learn is that the Swiss military makes available large stocks of surplus "expired-but-shootable" ammunition for all those issue assault rifles, as well as for the older semiautomatic (non-selective-fire) military long arms and pistols sold out of Army inventory over the years, and does so freely and cheaply.

This puts lots of ammunition into the hands of the Swiss private citizenry, both Militia members and those without any formal affiliation with the military services.

The Swiss not only keep all those weapons in their homes but get a lot of familiarity with them. The sealed ammunition boxes are for "official" use, but the Militia member is encouraged to take his piece down to the firing range as often as possible, and get plenty of practice with it.

Recently I watched the World Pastry Team Championship on Food Network, a prestigious international contest to see which country can create the most sensational sugar and chocolate masterpieces. It was held in the US and some of the countries represented were France (duh), Germany, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Switzerland, and Belgium. All the teams bring their own equipment to use in these contests, but this year (2008?) we were told that Japan would be working with a distinct disadvantage, having to use all new equipment. Why, oh WHY couldn’t Team Japan compete with the equipment they brought? What disaster had befallen them? The announcer said only that it was because of a TSA “debacle.”

I can’t find anything by googling, so I can only guess that Team Japan’s equipment was confiscated by the TSA and destroyed. That sounds plausible. Wasn’t there a famous pianist who traveled all over the world with his own Baby Grand, that is, until he tried to sneak it into the US, whereupon the TSA had to destroy it because it smelled funny?

Every reader of this site should get a copy of, and read the book "The Holocaust Industry" by Jewish author Norman G. Finkelstein, whose mother is an Auschwitz survivor and has the tattoo on her arm to prove it. Out of the $80 billion or so in reparations paid by the German Government to Israel and various Holocuast survivor organizations, his mother has received only about $1,000. This is the editorial review of Finkelstein's book from Amazon.com:

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"This iconoclastic study was one of the most widely debated books of 2000. Finkelstein indicts with both vigor and honesty those who exploit the tragedy of the Holocaust for their own personal political and financial gain. In a devastating new postscript to this best-selling book, Norman G. Finkelstein documents the Holocaust industry's scandalous cover-up of the blackmail of Swiss banks, and in a new appendix demolishes an influential apologia for the Holocaust industry. In an iconoclastic and controversial new study, Norman G. Finkelstein moves from an interrogation of the place the Holocaust has come to occupy in American culture to a disturbing examination of recent Holocaust compensation agreements. It was not until the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, when Israel's evident strength brought it into line with US foreign policy, that memory of the Holocaust began to acquire the exceptional prominence it enjoys today. Leaders of America's Jewish community were delighted that Israel was now deemed a major strategic asset and, Finkelstein contends, exploited the Holocaust to enhance this newfound status. Their subsequent interpretations of the tragedy are often at variance with actual historical events and are employed to deflect any criticism of Israel and its supporters. Recalling Holocaust fraudsters such as Jerzy Kosinski and Binjamin Wilkomirski, as well as the demagogic constructions of writers like Daniel Goldhagen, Finkelstein contends that the main danger posed to the memory of Nazism's victims comes not from the distortions of Holocaust deniers but from prominent, self-proclaimed guardians of Holocaust memory. Drawing on a wealth of untapped sources, he exposes the double shakedown of European countries as well as legitimate Jewish claimants, and concludes that the Holocaust industry has become an outright extortion racket. Thoroughly researched and closely argued, The Holocaust Industry is all the more disturbing and powerful because the issues it deals with are so rarely discussed."

==================================

All those tens of billions have disappeared into lavish institutional salaries for wives and girlfriends and children of the principal professional whiners and coprogenetics in the Jewish Holocaust Industry, into study trips to Tahiti to assess how non-Holocaust survivors live, into infrastructure for Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories, and into arms for the settlers.

In case there was any doubt in anyone's mind, the Bernie Madoff saga has confirmed the thesis of this book: Certain Jews are equal-opportunity embezzlers: They will steal from their own people just as readily as from non-Jews, even from their own mothers, children, widows, orphans, the sick, and the poor.

I read recently that a survey was done this year in 60 countries, to find out which country was viewed as the most corrupt by its OWN citizens. The hands-down winner: Israel.

At least SOME Jews have a clear-sighted and honest view of their own people. However, the luxury of an honest opinion is denied to non-Jews, such as Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, John Mearsheimer, and Stephen Walt.

I read part of The Holocaust Industry that concerned Switzerland by using Amazon’s “Search Inside” feature and reread the link provided in this essay but I don’t understand how blackmailing billions from Switzerland led to (1) the abandonment of the Swiss franc’s tie to gold, and (2) the Swiss revising their constitution to make the severance of francs to gold permanent.

I'm not sure that the objective behind the shake-down was to bring about a new Swiss constitution and the end of the franc's link to gold. What happened, as I understand it, was that the blackmail demands caused the Swiss government to de-monetize a quantity of its gold reserves, and then Gresham's Law took over.

I largely agree with Mr. Gulliver's point that the political exploitation, financial extortion and 'victimization' culture that emanated from the Shoah industry as ably documented by Norman Finkelstein in his book "The Holocaust Industry" has tainted the memory of the unspeakable, horrible WWII democide, but I'm still a little uneasy about comments like "Certain Jews are equal opportunity embezzlers...".

Regarding those fiendish "certain Jews", is it due to the genes of a certain Israelite tribe? The Danites? The Reubenites? Maybe it's those treacherous Gadites, or is it due to the genetic descendants of the Levitical priesthood who bear the surname 'Cohen'.

One rarely hears, if ever, such comments as "certain Brits are equal opportunity embezzlers", or "pay strict attention to certain Chinese, for they are equal opportunity swindlers" or the universal admonition to be on the lookout for "certain Buddhists who are equal opportunity cheats and liars who are known to have treated co-religionists and foreigners with equal guile and contempt."

I certainly don't deny that many Jewish people have committed heinous crimes against persons and property, and I don't deny that the Israeli leadership is corrupt, but this can be generally said about other ethnic groups and their government leadership as well. It's as if those Hebrews, as characterized by the ethno-centrically fixated Zionist watchdogs, have some kind of preternatural monopoly on all that is unholy and evil. What is it about "the Jews" that elicits such disproportionate responses above and beyond all other ethnic groups?

I suppose I may be a tad bit too sensitive, but 'Group Think' and the collectivist mindset, whether based on economic class or race, has become -how did Will Grigg once word it- a pestiferous irritation between my teeth and gums.

P.S. Another "clear sighted and honest Jew" -I know; it's extremely rare. Right?- is Benjamin Ginsberg who wrote the insightful tome entitled "The Fatal Embrace: The Jews And The State". I recommend it....unless, for some inexplicable reason, you don't trust me.

==================================Simone Wapler compared government debt to government gold. The United States has gold worth about $241 billion, she reports. Its official national debt is $11.5 trillion. That gives it a debt/gold ratio of 48 – meaning; the feds have 48 times as much debt as gold.

Britain is even worse. Prime Minister, then Chancellor, Gordon Brown sold much of England's gold at the worst possible moment – about 10 years ago. This leaves the island with only $9 billion worth of gold compared to $1,274 billion of government debt – a ratio of 1 to 139.

But Japan is the worst of all. It has $23 billion worth of gold and $7.3 trillion of government debt, for a ratio of 1 to 323. (Of course, Japan has vast holdings of dollars too!)

What nation has the best gold/debt ratio? Switzerland. It has only twice as much in government debt as it has in gold. ===================================

I cannot explain why it is that down through history Jews have been picked upon by the populations they lived among. Anti-Jewish writings are vast and extensive over the past 2,000 years. Even Shakespeare created the caricature Shylock to represent "The Jew," and many of the Founding Fathers of this country also wrote in highly unfavorable terms about Jews. It was not only the Nazis who felt this way - they just represented the syndrome taken to incomprehensible and spectacular criminal lengths.

(I personally believe the Shoah had just as much to do with stealing the money, homes, and property of the Jews of Europe as with hatred of them. A dead rich man has no voice in the disposition of his property. And the Nazi Party was an immense criminal enterprise, which stole gold bullion and diamonds and money and art treasures from conquered nations in vast quantities that would boggle the mind.)

We can propose many theories about this phenomenon. Certainly, the writings of many rabbis in the Talmud down through the centuries are even more vicious and derogatory towards Goyim than the writings of all those Goyim towards Jews. Which side started this war of words I do not know. As for which tribe is to blame, the answer might be none of the above - it could be the Khazars, whose existence is denied by some.

As I have mentioned before on this blog, the Polish immigrant Jews in Germany, (descendants of the Khazars,) who had fled there from Poland following their treachery to their host country during the battle of Warsaw in 1920, were utterly despised even by the native (as in 300+ years of residence) Jews of Germany, who referred to them as "Galizianer Judenschwein."

In the 1920's 300,000 Polish Jews also fled east into Russia, expecting a warm welcome from their hero Uncle Joe Stalin, whose side they had taken in the Battle of Warsaw, but who had them all shot -every one - as soon as they crossed the border.

Post-WWII those Polish Jews who had somehow survived the war in Germany (I could make reference to some rodent or insect species, but will refrain,) were so much trouble to the American Occupation Authority that they were rounded up and held in a concentration camp in Hamburg prior to forcible deportation to Palestine from 1945 to 1947. (They have since become the corrupt Zionist criminals who now rule Israel.) Yes indeed - not only did Roosevelt blatantly steal $229 million of Jewish money deposited in America, but America operated the last Jewish concentration camp (but without gas chambers) in Germany.

The Polish Jews in Germany could not be sent back to Poland - that was tried, and resulted in Catholic Polish massacres of their returning Jewish countrymen - the last pogroms in history were in Poland in 1946. Today you will find there are more Jews living in Germany, the fountainhead of Nazism, than in the Nazi-conquered nation of Poland. (118,000 vs. 25,000. Even Hungary has more, at 49,000.) Something to wonder at, don't you think? As I said, it was not only the Nazis who felt this way towards those "certain" Jews.

However, in conclusion, if I was Jewish, I would make every effort, not only to research every discriminatory atrocity ever perpetrated against my people, and to commemorate these in religious holidays, but to find out WHY it keeps happening again, and again, and again, and again, over thousands of years and across continents, and in places where an entire host of religions have prevailed. What is that for a phenomenon? It is quite astonishing.

Still keeping my eye on what the shakedown artists, i.e. "lawyers", are trying to do to UBS. How ironic that the DOJ would pursue monies in foreign accounts but turn a blind eye in its defense of torture or the misspent wealth of common Americans in foreign wars of aggression. Yes yes... the hypocrisy moves forward as usual. Move along now folks just new lies for old.

Will, again, bless you. I've been thinking of Switzerland's example lately. Now that the EU is determined to strangle the last vestige of national sovereignty left in 'old Europe'... and disarm its citizens... molon labe!

Don't feel too sorry for UBS First Boston. After Republican Senator Phil Gramm had engineered the midnight removal of all regulations and standards from the banking industry and its menagerie of exotic "derivatives" creations in 1999, (which he still maintains strenuously had nothing to do with the present credit collapse,) he retired from the Gubbamint and was hired by UBS at a salary which UBS and Phil Gramm choose not to disclose. One hand washes the other, so to speak, as it has always done down through the sewers of history.

Whatever UBS gets, UBS deserves.

Unfortunately, Phil Gramm gets nothing, except to keep his salaries, commissions, stock options, perks, expense accounts, and cash, which is no doubt deposited for him in UBS accounts.

Possibly, the directoral board of UBS consists of forty members, and Phil Gramm's real name is Ali Baba.

LG, Thanks for the update. Well, it only goes to show that some of the biggest criminals to ever cast their corrupt shadow over Mordor on the Pottomac spewed forth from Texas. Thats not something to be proud about.

There has been a George Soros funded campaign to get "sensible gun safety" laws passed in Switzerland.What a change from the days when I would read Halbrook's prose in the American Rifleman, so envious of the Swiss people's freedom.

Now it seems like it is turning into US.

That the Swiss did not really resist the scam by the Holocaust industry was another sign that the new Swiss are not like the old Swiss. No courage.

Today or tomorrow, attached to the Defense bill, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crime bill may pass the Senate.

I have to say I was shocked that a certain paleo-libertarian website did not even mention this bill.

“Whatever UBS gets, UBS deserves.” How churlish; it is the Swiss and American people who will “get” what UBS deserves, if anything, and nobody deserves to “get what they deserve” at the hands of the American government. But is that their greatest sin? Paying off a Congressman? Using the government to enact legislation that helps businesses and hurts “taxpayers,” (our only identity), was the guiding principal upon which this country was founded.

"Using the government to enact legislation that helps businesses and hurts “taxpayers,” (our only identity), was the guiding principal upon which this country was founded."

Perhaps not - from all acounts, the Founders knew all too well the dangers of unbridled government, and set up all those checks and balances to prevent it, which we seem to have discarded without a second thought. But you are exactly right in regards to our present situation.

I voted for Obama, but he seems to have been turned from his purposes by all those voices around him whispering in his ears about noble reconciliation and monarchical clemency. The welfare for corporations and the kleptocratic bankers, the forgiveness of criminal activity and torture, the blind eyes turned to embezzlement and theft, this is NOT why I voted for the man....The more things change, the more they stay the same, as the French say. "Yes we can" - do WHAT, exactly?

Slogans will not pay my rent when the unemployment checks stop coming and I am no longer counted as unemployed. And I don't expect the CEOs of those banks to give me any free rides in their corporate jets either.

I should change my pseudonym from Gulliver to "Permanently Nauseated."